Google: The Democrat’s Private Intelligence Agency

Last week, Neil Stevens raised the alarm about Google selling out conservatives on policy issues. He’s right, but a number of conservatives and Republicans think there is an even bigger problem for GOP.

Remember that enormous, sophisticated data operation the Obama campaign had? The one that gave them massive daily data on public opinion trends in almost every segment of potential voters.

It’s almost as if Democrats had access to some sort of huge database of real time information about what the public was reading or writing online. The kind of breathtakingly large, real-time data that could be used for real-time trend analysis, predictive modeling and even behavioral manipulation.

On a completely unrelated note, former RNC eCampaign Director Michael Turk wrote Monday that “the frightening advantage the left has is in a less touted entity known as the Analyst Institute (AI) and a consortium of behavioral scientists” who are “concerned not only with your characteristics and voting behavior, but how they can manipulate that behavior.”

Now, combine Obama’s political campaign with Google’s near-comprehensive real-time data and the left’s behavioral analysis. What do you get? Beat.

This goes beyond just campaigns. Google likes to brag that they can detect flu outbreaks two weeks before the CDC based on search volume. Eric Schmidt once bragged that the company could predict stock market movements.

Imagine how much more could be learned if Google’s computer algorithms combined not only search data but also all of the data they get by reading everything written in or sent to Gmail and whatever you store on Google docs and Google Drive. Then imagine what Democratic voter data groups like Catalist (which launched as a for-profit operation, allowing it much more latitude in working with outside groups….or companies) could do with that data.

With a few tweaks to their algorithms Google could easily have near perfect insights into the voting behaviors and patterns of the U.S. population at large down to specific precincts, neighborhoods or even households.

The threat isn’t just that Google openly supports left wing politicians and policies. That’s obvious, and that relationship goes both ways. Google+ hosted Joe Biden for a “fireside chat” about gun control and Obama is doing a Google+ “hangout” immediately following his State of the Union speech tonight.

The real threat is that Google, or perhaps just a few people within the leadership of Google, may be quietly operating as a private intelligence agency for the left.

And every time you use Google or Gmail you could be contributing just a little bit more of your behavioral data to the left.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013